AI Shock vs the China Shock

The China Shock of the 1990s and 2000s remains, even now, the subject of much debate. American consumers benefited from the cheaper goods that were imported from China. Some American businesses also benefited from importing cheaper equipment that was made in China. But other American businesses suffered from the competition, shuttering factories throughout the Rest Belt and South.

How bad was it? What was the overall effect on workers? How did workers and communities adjust?

Today’s episode is about the lessons of that shock for what might end up being a brand new shock: the AI Shock. Economists and many others are trying to figure out what it’s going to mean if AI itself ends up becoming a new source of competition for American businesses and American workers.

One such economist is Adam Ozimek, Chief Economist at the Economic Innovation Group. Adam is the co-author of a new analysis about the right and wrong lessons to take from the China shock for the strange world that we now find ourselves in. (You can find that post at agglomerations.eig.org, EIG’s newsletter.)

Adam speaks with Cardiff about the similarities and differences between the workers and towns affected by the two shocks, which characteristics matter most for people and places to become resilient to large shocks, how to think about automation and the collection of tasks that make up a job, and much more.

Related links:

• Agglomerations
• Messy Jobs, by Luis Garicano